A brand-new broadcast awards program? A workshop where you get to keep the camera? And 29 sessions on everything from Final Cut to the FCC?

Yawn.

To GO12 broadcast chair Jim Hayes, that’s just the usual kick-ass stuff he expects from the fall college media convention.

What has him really psyched is something more…

A live television newscast from the convention floor, run by students and aired nightly.

It’s called NCMC TV, and Hayes says without any hint of hyperbole: “It’s one of the coolest things we’ve ever tried to do with regard to broadcasting at any convention.”

It’s also one of the most complicated, which you won’t find it happening anywhere else…

To have a working television studio set up at our convention will be amazing, no doubt. But to use it for the production of a live newscast, where selected students from a variety of schools get to train with professionals, go out in the field to produce packages, and ultimately work together under deadline to produce a complete newcast live – I think it’s the definition of experiential learning.

As they say on TV: But wait, there’s more!

There’s also a streaming radio station called NCMC Radio. “We have a team of professional radio mentors who will work one-on-one with students who sign up to be a DJ on our live streaming radio station,” Hayes says.

But that’s not all!

“Maybe the most important session for students,” Hayes says, “features Chicago Public Media COO Alison Scholly and Chicago Tribune Managing Editor Jane Hirt – since they’ll be talking about what it takes to get a job in media after graduation.”

You can find that session and a whole lot more at the GO12 Broadcast page – including a radio session in the dark, FCC discussions from a guy who actually worked at the FCC, and a lawyer telling you what the f^@# the law means to you.